Friday Snippets: 4/18/08 - There is Just Something about Coaches and Religion

Your Friday Snippets for Another Week.

Here we go again with Ken Starr. This time he has agreed to take the long running (as in going on 2 decades)
Flores v. Arizona case to the Supreme Court. The case, for those not
familiar, concerns the State of Arizona's implementation of their
English Language Learner program. The plaintiffs contend that Arizona
does ot provide enough funding to properly implement the ELL program so
that minority language students have an equal shot, as defined under
the Equal EducationalOpportunity Act of 1974. Here is a more complete summary of the case. Here is the latest opinion, the denial of an en banc hearing. Here is the earlier opinion of the 9th Circuit ruling against the State of Arizona. Also, funding for ELL was approved this week, but more court documents have been filed
to compel compliance with the ruling. -- With Ken Starr behind it,
perhaps we will see this case be granted cert. also by the Supreme
Court. Stay tuned on this one.



Some in Arizona (apparently it is Arizona's week this week) also don't want any anti-Democratic or non-Western teaching in its schools.



Illinois' State Senate says no trans-fats in school lunches.



At least schools are more important that ballparks (even if that ballpark is Wrigley Field).



Indiana's corporal punishment law was helpful to a teacher who gripped (slapped) a girl's face.



Louisiana is trying to get around evolution (Missouri too) (who isn't these days?) (btw, BoardBuzz has the complete works of Darwin ).



South Dakota's school funding lawsuit will start in September.



Iowa's sales tax plan for schools is losing momentum.



Florida, who is really struggling financially, looks to have a 2 year waiting period before the class size reductions take place.



The Ohio bill that is attempting to permit college students to carry guns is stalling (thankfully - looks like all of these bills across the country are failing).



Kansas has a new cyber-bullying law.



Bullying in an anti-bullying meeting in Missouri?



Some pretty striking expulsion numbers in Las Vegas.



Teachers are striking at some Catholic Schools in NY.




And around the blogosphere:

Probably the big story this week was the ruling out of the 3rd Circuit in Borden v. Sch. Dist. of the Township of East Brunswick
which found that a football coach cannot join his team in prayer for
meals or during pregame prayer. The court found participating in these
prayer activities would be endorsing religion. Mark Walsh at Education Week has more as does Molly McDonough at the ABA Journal.
 
But, that was not out only coach to make news this week. The Kentucky School News and Commentary blog comments on a story
from around Columbus, OH where a teacher/coach refuses to remove a copy
of the Bible from his classroom. The event has triggered local interest
and a 100 person rally for the teacher was held yesterday. The teacher is claiming freedom of speech protection in displaying the Bible (good luck with that) - Richard Day says
"His persistent effort over time to impose his strongly held views
promoting a specific religion smells like ...establishment."

Martha Neil, who has been doing an excellent job following the NY School Attorney's scandal, posts this week
that the probe has moved beyond just school attorneys to all
professional involved in government work. This is bad news for NY
accountants, architects and others, but sort of good news for school
lawyers as they will not be the only ones catching heat and it may help
school lawyers save a little face after this embarrassment.

But, the school attorney scandal was not the only way schools can be taken advantage of, as Mark Walsh finds in an odd mail fraud case.

Jim Gerl has a good week continuing his series on Procedural Safeguards in Special Education with IEE's the topic this week, but also gives us a little personal info about the conferences he attends and the Big Wigs he gets to hangs around with. In all seriousness, nice work Jim in promoting the rural special education agenda.



Mike Tully At The Schoolhouse Gate has word of another bullying lawsuit.



Mitchell Rubinstein has the declining relevance of law reviews ... and law reviews are also moving online, somewhat (finally).
    
Pamela Parker at Texas Teacher Law has an interesting post on how hard to fight when the system turns against you.



Board Buzz has bullying in the lunchrooms, and not how you would expect.



Volume 7 of the Integration Report is up.



Politico has McCain's Arizona Education roots ... and why they are dangerous.

Fordham is now blogging. They also are making videos
(calling their weekly spot the Fordham Factor), which are generally
good and informative, but could use a much better intro. Seriously,
fellas, that intro needs some major, major, professional help. But, I
really appreciate the creativity.

And you may have noticed the upgrades to the blog this week. This blog is now using SnapShots so that readers can preview pages (if you don't like it you can tell Snapshots to cut it out). Also, on the sidebar I have my favorite videos. I just have a few in there now, but I will continue updating that with cool new videos. Finally, I have also added my bookshelf
to the sidebar you can keep track of what I am reading/recommending
(try the physics books, if you get it on tape, it is a great way to
travel across the country).



Finally, a Special Request this week concerning Gifted Education. Marty Nemko,
a contributing editor at U.S. News among other things, called me up
this week and wanted a little information on education law and
plaintiff's lawyers for educational litigants. He is particularly
interested in the way gifted students are treated (or mis-treated in
his opinion) in the United States. Here is a blog post he wrote on his thoughts on gifted education.
I gave him a couple names but really did not have exactly what he was
looking for so I thought I would put it out to all of you. If you have
any ideas for a potential law firm that would be interested in this or
have any other thoughts on gifted education, feel free to leave a comment at his blog or get in touch with him.  This might be a good way for a young, up and coming student's rights firm to make a name for itself.





And for your Friday Fun: A Little Bathroom Humor
(for those of you that know me really, really well, you know I have an extreme aversion to public restrooms). Sorry if it is a little crude ... but it
is funny as heck. Men's Room (below) and Ladies Room

Google Document Link: Friday Snippets: 4/18/08 - There is Just Something about Coaches and Religion

Comments

[jim gerl]

It should be noted for the record that I'm pretty sure that the threat by the Big Wigs to throw me into Gitmo was made in jest!

[Justin B.]

Pretty sure? I think that probably depends on just how hard you push the rural special education agenda and whether or not you begin to "terrorize" them. It is a pretty broad definition you know.